Recent posts by HelloLion on Kongregate

Topic: Off-topic / Type "Kongregate" with your eyes closed

Ebaum’s World

Man, I really messed that up

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Even if there’s no “winner” to this, I just want to say I had a great time with this contest, and I hope everyone who was involved keeps writing!

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Merry Christmas my fellow writers!

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Originally posted by JudeMaverick:

It’s just an idea, but if people have an interest in it, let me know and maybe we can do something like this.

Check out Writer’s Block (not the syndrome but the group here).

I should have known it already existed. Thanks!

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Well, Laxaria, having read your intentions behind the piece, I’d say you completed your goal perfectly, and by and large did a very good job of it. Outstanding, even. After all my work in creative writing, especially given my focuses are biographical non-fiction and literature, respectively, I’ve become a bit old fashioned in some senses. So when I see short story contest I want a setup, some stuff to happen, and a conclusion. I realize that’s not really the judging criteria for this contest, and so there’s nothing at all wrong with what you’ve written, and as I’ve said, on many levels I enjoy it. I’m just telling you all this so that, much in the way that you’ve told me where you’re coming from, I can tell you where I’m coming from.

a shout out to everyone

Perhaps for those of us who are interested we could get a little something going on where we could give each other writing prompts and critique each others’ work? I always enjoy things like that, and it seems like I’ve both been able to learn a lot, and to (I hope) help others learn a thing or two. And since a lot of small mentions of wanting to write more from various people, and there’s no reason we couldn’t have this same kind of workshopping environment for our writing outside of a contest. It’s just an idea, but if people have an interest in it, let me know and maybe we can do something like this.

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

I’m not going to bother breaking down specific lines I don’t like; plenty of people have already done that for our stories. Instead I’ll be writing about my general impressions of each story, just to give you a bit more to think about for revisions.

Razzi3l, your story was certainly a great read. I’m easily distracted, and so it took me a few times reading the first two or three lines before I actually gave it a full on read, but once I started I couldn’t stop. Your dialogue was what sold the piece to me; it felt, by and large, very natural, which is exactly what you want in good dialogue. Overall, the story was pretty solid. The biggest failing point of the story was the ending. It felt like we waited a long time for this climactic moment to happen, then we’re struck with this ending, which is a great ending but feels very sudden. I know this is partially due to the constraints on the story, and isn’t entirely your fault, I’m just commenting on it. Also, your sentence structures outside of dialogue could use some help. As I’ve said, once I got going I couldn’t stop, but it was hard for me to get going.

MeMe44, in a writing contest such as this, you rarely see such a beautiful example of fairy tale. The beautiful simplicity of childrens’ literature is excellent captured in you writing. And you don’t drag it out, which is good. However, while your short, simple sentences work in some places, in others they don’t seem to quite create the images I want to see. If this were illustrated I could ignore it, but since it’s not it’s much harder to overlook things like your unnecessary use of “of course” (not that I’m any better with the word “however”). It’s a sweet story but it could use a tad more spice. (I’m sorry)

Laxaria, I’m not sure what to say about your story. I’ve read it more than any of the others I’m supposed to critique, and yet, something eludes me. I enjoy it each time, but I enjoy it int he way that I enjoy a poem, not a short story. You play with language so well, and you have a fantastic concept, but I feel no drive to watch anything unfold because nothing is unfolding. Perhaps the short length of the piece limited your ability to paint the picture I’m sure, from your writing, you could create. I’m not sure, but as the beautiful waves of your words sweep over me, they do not pull me along, only leave me back where I started.

Castigate, as a friend, I feel I am too biased to give you a very good critique. I did, however, take issue with the line about the skull bomb. You seem to take for granted that we should know what all these other things like “Turbo-Draculas” and “Pichu Pebbles” are and yet you insist on singling out this one object for description, it sort of breaks the narrative quality. Aside from that, as someone who has read way too many adventure books, you could have shaped things up better by starting us off as if we, the player in your adventure, had just performed some action. The fact that we haven’t just performed some action, makes me disoriented as to what has happened in the moment before. From your descriptions I can tell much of what has come and passed in this story, but I can’t say what was on the last page. I haven’t the slightest clue. That bothers me. However, a look of sexy, loving concern is probably the best sentence ever, so I guess I’ll forgive you.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Originally posted by Razzi3l:

Castigate, you may like to read William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style, it is quite useful. Matter of fact, I would recommend this book to everyone here, along with Jane E. Aaron’s The Little, Brown Compact Handbook for a more in-depth writing… handbook.

I own two copies of both, haha. Elements of Style is probably the the best book providing some sort of information ever.

I swear I will get around to critiques when I can, the holidays make it hard.

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Originally posted by Kevindubrow:

Originally posted by HelloLion:

Two Feet Under

1. “I’ll call your father and see if he’s coming home early or something,” my mom said,

2. The next day, however, I arrived home to find my mom waiting with a shovel.

3. “Where did the dirt go?,” I wondered aloud,

1. “My mom sighed,”

2. Remove “however”

3. I would put it as “Where did the dirt go? I wondered”, or even just remove “I wondered” too.

Razzi, your story should have been in the top 5. Oh well.

Thanks for the suggestions, I always love critiques, and you’re right, the ‘however’ is completely unnecessary. However, I might argue the other two. I try to use ‘said’ in most situations, as ‘said’ is a somewhat invisible word that can be used to convey dialogue without breaking the scene. Anytime you use a word other than ‘said’ or ‘asked’ you are running a risk of breaking the scene. As a writer with a lot to learn still, this is a risk I generally avoid taking unless I feel another verb is absolutely necessary. As far as the ‘aloud’ goes, I actually played with every version of the line that you mentioned, but as this is nonfiction, I wanted it to be very clear that this was something I had said, out loud, to myself in my puzzled state, rather than make it in any way ambiguous. Thank you again for making me think about those things, as now I’ve been given the opportunity to do some critical thinking about my writing.

I plan to do some critiques late tonight (probably in the wee hours) of at least the fivers, if not more stories (I do love to critique writing and have my writing critiqued) so be looking for those, if you’re interested.

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

You’ve got my name wrong in the rankings by numbers, Moss, no sweat but it’d be nice if you fixed it! =P

Thanks to all the judges, I’m really surprised to see my story ranked so highly! It’s a good feeling =D

Topic: The Arts / HelloLion and Steveorr's Kongregate Adventure - A Comic

Episode 3: MAWD CALL

Sorry for no comic yesterday. Sundays are sometimes busy days.

Enjoy?

And Jude, as I’ve said, there’s a specific idea behind this comic, and I’m not making it to please you, so I shan’t be changing my perspective. Thanks for the comment though!

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Originally posted by Khnum666:

Nice story HelloLion. Just one problem.

“I’ll all your father”

Just a typo I suspect.

>.> What typo?

<.<

Topic: The Arts / Snazzy Short Story Contest

Hello, I am a Lion. I have been writing off and on for years, I’m not very dependable at keeping up with writing regularly ‘cause I do too many other things (like play flash games =P) but I enjoy writing when I get around to it. It wasn’t until taking my first college-level creative writing course last year that I realized I enjoy writing non-fiction more than fiction which I was, admittedly, very surprised to discover. As such, it seemed only fitting that I use this contest as an excuse to write a short piece of non-fiction on a subject I’ve been wanting to write about. Also, Squally said the beatings would continue until some he saw MalFunction represented in the contest. You’ll find that if you exclude the intro and include the title my entry is exactly 600 words. Now, without further ado, allow me to present:

Two Feet Under

The worst part about my father working primarily out of town over the course of the past two years was not the dissolution of family dinners. It was not the lack of weekend projects, or late night jam sessions. It wasn’t even having to perform without him being in the audience for the first time since I was 13. No, the worst part about my father being gone was burying the cat.

Among my father’s many responsibilities is pet burial. Our family has had a great number of cats over the years, and while most of them have been given away when moving, with me never to see their end, a few of our cats had stuck with us, patiently following us from house to house across the country and back. When one of these cats finally runs out of lives my father has the role of feline undertaker.

However, when Princess, our eldest cat, died in the spring of last year my father was not home, nor was he scheduled to be home for several weeks. It was a very unexpected death. Some would say death always is, but when the cat before her, Godzilla, had died it had been a slow enough process that when she died it most certainly was expected. One day I left the house and went to class, then to work, and when I got home late that night I found out the news.

My mother had already put her body in shady corner downstairs and covered her with a towel well before I got home, so there was nothing to do when I got there except listen to the details, or, rather the lack there of. My mother knew as little as I did; she’d come home from work and found that Princess had gone off to wherever cats go when they die. There wasn’t much to do that night; it was late and we were both too tired to deal with it. The next day, though, we danced around the issue, both not wanting to claim responsibility for Princess’s interment.

“I’ll call your father and see if he’s coming home early or something,” my mom said, knowing it was futile. We managed to put it off through the day, and when it got dark, well, there was nothing to do at that point.

The next day, however, I arrived home to find my mom waiting with a shovel.

“Let’s do this,” she said, handing the shovel over to me. We walked over to the side yard, outside of the fence. She’d already cleared the various weeds that grow in the desert out of the way, so all that stood before me was a small patch of sand and dirt.

Digging wasn’t so bad. Sure, digging is hard labor, but it wasn’t a big hole, so I got it done quickly. The problem was filling the hole back in. We’d decided to sacrifice a few towels to the burial, figuring that if New Mexico law said a person could be buried wrapped up in a blanket, that a towel would suffice for a cat.
The problem was, more than the emotional weight of filling the hole back in, that for some reason there seemed to be a good square foot less dirt than there was when I started. Even with the cat in the ground taking up more space, I couldn’t find enough earth to fill the hole.

“Where did the dirt go?,” I wondered aloud, as I left behind the shallow dent in the earth that marked her grave.

Topic: The Arts / HelloLion and Steveorr's Kongregate Adventure - A Comic

Episode 2: Wake Up the Lion
aww yeah, second comic
There’s a specific idea behind this comic that dictates it be the way it is, and I’m sorry if it’s not everyone’s kind of humor. However, if it’s not your kind of humor, and you think it’s a dumb poorly drawn piece of crap, guess what: you are under no obligation to read it or to post here. I appreciate criticism as much as the next guy, but if all you want to do is say you don’t like it, I’d once again remind you that no one is making you hit reply.

Thanks,

Lion <3

Topic: The Arts / HelloLion and Steveorr's Kongregate Adventure - A Comic

Originally posted by Sasms:

I thought you made it Super Stacker 2 on purpose. It kinda makes it more funnier that way anyway.

That was what I figured after realizing my mistake. It was a drunk mistake, then I realized it could be lulzy.

Also, in regards to the art quality, I also think it adds to the character of the comic, which is why I do it like that. I’m not a great artist by any means, but I can def. do better than this =P

Still I just know someone will jump in here and be like “YOU CANT DRAW U IDOT”

Topic: The Arts / HelloLion and Steveorr's Kongregate Adventure - A Comic

Originally posted by ForeverArctic:

Do you mean Perfect Balance 2?

I figured out this was wrong shortly before posting, then decided I didn’t care.

I’m a little drunk.

Thanks Achilles and Sasms <3

New one tomorrow

Topic: The Arts / HelloLion and Steveorr's Kongregate Adventure - A Comic

Allow me to present the exciting adventures of myself (HelloLion) and Stevenorr as we play games on Kongregate. This comic was inspired by the crazy voice chats Stevenorr and I have had with other Kong users. Enjoy!

Episode 1: Super Stacker 2

Please don’t make comments about the terribad art quality; you either get it or you don’t.

Topic: Off-topic / [Game] Spell your name with your favorite bands!

This Will Destroy You
Owl City
Moving Mountains
Mew
Yndi Halda

I wish there were Ds and Gs in my name, but that actually gets several of my very favourites.

Topic: Off-topic / Make Your Ultimate Band

Prepare to be awed:

Anthony Green (Circa Survive) – Vocals
Nikki King (Gregor Samsa) – Piano/Vocals
Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Guitar
Daniel Neal (Yndi Halda) – Violin
Adam Young (Owl City) – Synths/Electronics
Carlos D (Interpol) – Bass
Meg White (The White Stripes) – Drums

Tell me what this band would sound like, ‘cause I don’t know, but I suspect it would be awesome.

Topic: Off-topic / Post lyrics to the song your listening to

Young and Old by Gregor Samsa

How long, how long
Until I see you?
And when, and when does
The light come shining through?
Remember days when we were so young and
Remember days when we were so young and
We were so young and old

Seven lines of lyrics, not repeated (except for the second to last line, which is sung twice)…seven and a half minutes of music. They are a band of few words and many instruments.

Topic: Off-topic / ICP

ICP is not a band and they do not make music. Other than that though, they’re pretty cool I guess.

Topic: Off-topic / Are Slipknot the best metal band in the world?

The best metal band is Kill My Bleeding Smile.

whoo post-metal >.>

Topic: Zening / Zening Beta Round 2 Open!

HelloLion here, ready to test if you need more testers.